EE Knight - vampire series, post apocalypse. dragons series. last book of dragon series is apocalyptic.

Apocalypse

definition: revelation

Favorite scenarios

Daniel: as a society, we’re totally enmeshed in technology. if you take the technology away, or if you turn the technology against us, that’s really fun. it tears the world around. it explores how we depend on it, and what we get out of it.

Victoria: apocalypse stories have to choose where they are situated: a year after the event, 50 years after the event. that choice interests me.

One generations luxuries become another generations necessities. and then the next generation they become unneeded again. e.g. a post apocalyptic society wouldn’t say we need electricity for lights, they would just go to bed when it gets dark.

apocalypse is just a 5 minute event, and then it’s over.

anything done to death?

No... it just need to be done well.

zombie apocalypse done to death...and yet, still love to read them.

Daniel

when I read it, I want to know who the bad guys are.

apocalypse scenarios show us what people are made of. people stand up. heros are forged.

but when you get into things like people roasting babies on spits... that’s too contrived and too pointless.

i want redemption. the apocalypse is about starting over clean. are we inherently good or bad? do we hunt and kill each other or work together

When you blow up whole worlds... movies like that thing. but you need to show the few people, which is what people care about.

Q: Is it still an apocalypse novel if the apocalypse occurred 50 or 100 or 200 years ago?

Seems like yes.

Q: So what are the defining points of an apocalypse story?

Daniel: You need to establish the context. You have to have the world. You don’t know to do that if its Poland in WW2, because we know it. But if it’s a different world, you have to establish it. Then once you build it, you rip it apart.

Knight: It’s the story of who lives and who dies. People have to make a choice of whether to live or die.

It’s almost like running a simulation: let’s run five people through the simulation and see who lives and who dies.

There’s lots of real stories about apocalypses: every culture that died as a result of English colonization had an apocalypse. Maybe when you are living in the time, you don’t need to write about it.

A.I. Apocalypse: Leon Tsarev is coerced into writing a computer virus. The virus, written on biological principles, evolves out of control, halting all the world's computers, including emergency services, transportation, and payment systems. As deaths mount, it becomes a race against time to restore the computers, except that the virus has other plans.